Thanks for subscribing to A Mindful Web, a community that centers around creating a safer and more compassionate web. I will write mostly about where we are with the web and the leaders and teams that design and build our online experience. I will offer suggestions about changes that can help digital teams work more effectively--and produce safer digital products. I will interweave aspects of mindfulness that I've found helpful personally and when working with clients. I've spent the last 25 years working with digital teams and leaders, trying to help them grapple with integrating the web into long-lived organizations and business models and teaching them how to govern the experiences they design and put online.
My mindfulness practice has come from many philosophers and traditions- but Buddhism primarily. Buddhism, and many other religious, philosophical, and scientific domains, emphasize the interconnectedness of all things and illuminate the delicate yet robust web of human experience. These scientific and wisdom traditions explain cause and effect in a way that gives pause and makes us wonder. So, I want to express gratitude for the thought of all the wise people who have come before me. I'm incredibly thankful for the writing of bell hooks, Credo Mutwa, Martine and Stephen Batchelor, and Ruth King. So much of their wisdom and thought must come away from the page and our imagination and enter the world. We need to envision and build a safer and more compassionate web. We need to do what we know is right.
I'm also thankful to all of my ancestors for their tenacity and ability to make a way out of no way-- ensuring the abundance that is my life. This vision and the ability to see through, above, and below a tremendous hurdle is inspiring. Things do not have to be the way they are. Things can and will change. And things will change in the direction that we will them.
It's vital for those who create our digital world to stop scrambling and flailing and plant our feet. Solid ground, the bottom of the pool is closer than we think. Stand up and get your bearings. Realize a truth: for the most part, we have no idea what we are doing. This assertion is not about imposter syndrome. It's not a pessimistic view. We are very early in the maturity cycle of the commercial web, and we can't know much. Most of what we have designed and built might be functional and profitable, but it won't make the cut in the long haul. All technologies start wild and push hard towards growth and money-making, but there is always a time for a reset--to consider how to do a better and safer job.
It's time to turn our minds and skills towards creating a safe and sustainable web. This shift will bring in a new cycle of innovation--one that focuses less on functionality and more on safety. I'd argue that there is no more extensive and dynamic system for human beings now than the World Wide Web. But it is a complex global set of experiences put into play without much care. That uncareful pattern will not correct itself without intervention. I hope that A Mindful Web is part of that intervention--that it will cause you to pause and reflect on your work and the importance of doing it well and with intent.
I hope you will stay with me on this journey. I look forward to learning from your comments or reactions to my writing and the writings of others I share. It is me, by the way--a person. Opposing and divergent views and new perspectives are welcome. However, working out your frustrations via comments is not.
As always, take care.
Lisa